Luke 19.11-27 The road out of Jericho rises fast. You gain about 3,300 feet in seventeen miles, and on the western edge of the city you pass the ruins of Herod’s winter palace, last remodeled by his son Archelaus before Rome stripped him of power and sent him into exile. Every Jew walking that road... Continue Reading →

A young man comes to Jesus and asks what he must do to inherit eternal life. He has kept the commandments. He has done the things a religious man is supposed to do. Jesus tells him to sell what he has and give to the poor. The man walks away grieved, because he was very... Continue Reading →

Grief, Hope, and the Long Road Home Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “We do not want you to be uninformed, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4.13). We quote that verse often. We rarely talk about how heavy it is to live inside that hope while the losses keep... Continue Reading →

Desiderius Erasmus published The Praise of Folly in 1511 as an oration delivered by Folly herself, a goddess who praises her own gifts. The joke runs long, and readers have often stopped there, receiving the book as satire, a humanist’s wit turned on monks, popes, and pedants. But Erasmus is doing something more than lampooning... Continue Reading →

Revelation gives us two images, and they could not be more different. The first is a prostitute riding the beast, drunk on the blood of the saints. The second is a bride, clothed in fine linen, made ready for the Lamb. Babylon is not simply “bad people out there.” It is the whole system of cultural power,... Continue Reading →